Dear Europe: Time to Confront Your Hypocrisy on Trump's America
If we want to understand the political and material conditions that make anti-democratic movements like Trumpism possible, then we must openly and honestly confront how our own apathy in the face of eroding rights for society's most vulnerable.
The United States is witnessing a collapse in travel and tourism from Europe, often based on a fear of what could happen when the U.S. border is reached. Many Europeans are refusing to purchase U.S. products and services in protest against the Trump administration. Solidarity is also being expressed for U.S. university professors and students in the wake of crackdowns on academic freedom and free expression on campuses across the country.
As an American in Europe, and as someone who has consistently and publicly pointed to Trump’s obvious anti-democratic ideology, I completely understand these reactions. There is justified outrage over what is happening right now in the U.S.
This justification, however, cannot hide an uncomfortable truth. Namely, that Europeans (and many of my fellow Americans) have for decades been more than happy to ignore state violence and the abuse of human rights committed by the United States so long as the victims were poorer people in “other” parts of the world, or poorer people in marginalized sections of U.S. society.
The U.S. has the death penalty, the application of which had been proven to be overtly discriminatory and racist. The U.S. has a long history of supporting regimes engaged in human rights abuses, including the suppression of academic freedom. The U.S. has for decades interfered with democratic elections across the globe, often subverting the will of the people. The U.S. destroyed Iraq in the interests of oil. The Obama government convicted more whistleblowers than all other U.S. administrations combined, and he also engaged in the wide-scale use of “extra judicial” drone warfare that led to the deaths of large numbers of civilians, including children. During his first administration, Trump passed a “Muslim Ban.”
Trumpism was made possible, at least in part, by a political and cultural environment where commitments to democracy and human rights—the supposed core of “Western values”—proved to be little more than flexible PR slogans.
These things, it seems, were tolerable to many European democrats. But when U.S. actions impacted Europeans coming to the U.S., caused damage to the European stock market or led to Europeans being denied jobs or research grants? Well, you have to draw the line somewhere.
And therein lies an even more uncomfortable truth. That Trumpism was made possible, at least in part, by a political and cultural environment where commitments to democracy and human rights—the supposed core of “Western values”—proved to be little more than flexible PR slogans.
I was a PhD student in Texas on September 11, 2001. I witnessed how my country (and the UK) engaged in the destruction of Iraq and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis as U.S. media (and many U.S. citizens) cheered the grotesque killing. As would become apparent, these were citizens who not only had nothing to do with September 11, but their country wasn’t even involved.
The Western reaction? A collective shoulder shrug.
Did European travel to the U.S. collapse? Did European universities call for an academic boycott of U.S. higher education and academic journals? Was there a call to end research collaboration? Did academics stop attending conferences in the U.S.? Did citizens boycott U.S. products? No. Europeans were happy to travel to the U.S. as soldiers slaughtered civilians in Iraq and the government passed the Patriot Act (allowed for mass surveillance).
Why? Because the people being killed, surveilled, stopped and searched at the airport were Muslims or other minorities, not Christian families from London, Stockholm, or Frankfurt on their way to New York or Disneyland. The Iraqi stock market crashed, not Spain’s. The slaughter in Gaza is a stain on global humanity, only made possible by U.S. weapons and financing. I have yet to hear a call for cutting cultural or political ties with the U.S. over this ongoing atrocity. If we are being completely honest with ourselves, we should at least admit that, because of its massive global reach, boycotting the U.S. would have a major impact on our daily life in ways that boycotts of other nations simply do not. So we do not do it.
My argument is simple. If we want to understand the political and material conditions that make anti-democratic movements like Trumpism possible, then we must openly and honestly confront how our own apathy about the violation of the rights of the weakest in society can be exploited and expanded to later violate the rights of groups usually seen as “safe” from such exploitation.
There is plenty of blame for Trumpism to go around. That sometimes means a painful look inward.
